Arts and Crafts

Buried in the southern reaches of the City of Ash is a small courtyard hemmed in by the pale ghosts of other open faced structures. There is an white wooden archway with a name engraved there. 'Ikegai' and a tall stone wall that surrounds the small complex, which looks to have been swept and recently cleaned. The floor is cobblestone, weeds and bits of trailing ivy still cling to some parts of the infrastructure. Peeling paint and chipped stone aside, there is a crafting station in each of the cardinal directions.

Each of the cardinal directions seems to have a certain thematic element to it. The station to the north is all stacked black stone and seems to be where a great deal of basic Alchemy equipment has been set up.

The station along the eastern wall has the most greenery still around it's structure, the stone chipped and bluish-grey. There is a small pond here and multiple wooden benches. Although pretty sparce at the moment, it shows the bones of an workshop for working with wood and other Artisanal materials. There is also a series of small buildings interconnected with covered archways that go between them and white curtains over the doorways. There is a hearth flickering inside the building, which appears to be full of tools needed for the craft of clothing and other cloth projects.

The station to the south, farthest from the main entrance is also the largest. Steam rises from the cold air in a constant torrent from an active forge, the tools for the working with metal laid out on counters or hung on large hooks protruding from the walls. Each station is set out in long squares with islands in the middle, allowing several craftsmen to have their own space with common areas inbetween.

The western most part of the station has been set up as several long buildings, each of them long corridors filled with food supplies, ovens, spits and all manner of basic cooking equipment.

There are a number of smaller stations for other crafting types scattered here and there, spilling into the main courtyard itself. There are people here already, most of them Plant Hwyaden members who are cleaning up and making the once abandoned courtyard and connected buildings look as good as possible. There are people coming and going all the time, inspecting tools, filling up small supply rooms.

Nureha, resplendant in her multi-layered purple gown as this is an Official Function, is out in front of the worskhop to greet people as they arrive.

Posted up on the Archway before you even enter is a repeat of what was posted on the guild. A warning about other guilds taking advantage of crafters, and the rules of Ikegai.

All low level recipes and materials that are currently available are free. Joining the freely shared Discovery and Unlocking of upper tier recipes? A donation to the workshop is strongly encouraged to keep the workshop publicly available.

"Hello. Welcome. Please.. come right in. We'll get started with orientation in just a few minutes, please, feel free to look around and we'll see if we all can't collectively start on the right track."

    "......aaaaaaaiiiiiiiittttttt!"

    A blur of purple rounds a street corner, heading towards the newly minted Ikegai crafting complex. Yuuki hops to a stop at the last moment, leaning forward on her knees and taking in a few deep breathes, before saying, "Phew! I'm not late!"

    Yuuki stands up straight again, raising a hand into the air to greet their host with a grin, "Hey, Nureha!"

    They're invited inside, Yuuki happily jumping into step behind some of the others. As they begin to spread out, Yuuki whistles as she turns her head at the sights. She spins around for a moment, before saying, "Wow, this place looks GREAT!"

Kaydon has decided to poke around because he has been curious about the metalworking system, lots of folks seem to have been making discoveries, and he doesn't want to wind up being left behind when the others succeed at it.

He looks around, and then glances to Nureha as he admires the setup, "So Nureha, does your guild own all of this? Or just set everything up here because it was a good space? It looks great."

A maid, Vespa enters looking around. She quite impressed. "They got this place prett well set up." She wanders around to see what kind of facilties they got set up. As she looking around she wanders to where they have the Artisanal materierals set up.

Gwen has been working on this that and the other things. She's been griding pretty damn hard, also gathering. Gwen had her hand in several things from a newly formed trader network to getting in on the Plant Duck's project here in the city of Ash. She had even helped with building the place too. When she's got wor there would be some proper gear ready to work with that left her excited as one of her own projects. The agreement was fair and it was projected but an alliance member.

Side she wanted to make use of things as she looks to Yuuki for a moment

"It was quite the group project to get it up and running!"

She looks pleased two of the guild masters are here but where was Marielle or Silabus? Busy yes but still it's good to see a good turn out.

"Nureha, hey looks like we're good to go here? I can move a project I was working on here."

Gwen also isn't in plate she's in a green dress which cuts off at the knees and has slitted thighs a bit up the thigh with that she's also wearing knee-high leather boots.

    There's a bit of reluctance to come at first at the mention of Plant Hwyaden's involvement. No...It's not even because of Hwyaden itself but of...The person that stands at the entrance of the Ikegai. He's sure he hasn't seen her since the news of his recent 'promotion'. Though even still he finds himself not entirely sure how to interact with her after the events on Ezzo. Not like he could have his feelings on the matter impact his ability to check out the place, right? So the lithe Pooka enchanter made his way, as he arrived giving Nureha a brief look over her regal attire. He can't help but contrast it to the appearence of the beige robes from when she was out before. It's almost enough to make him comment on it, but he reframes. At the end of it though he does give her a nod as he follows the group in past the archway. While there's a bit of doubt, there's more curiousity into what the Ikegai could provide, and from first impressions alone he couldn't help but say it, "It's got a lot of potential..."

Shiruba isn't a crafter herself, but her best friend is and she knows a few others. Plus she has exploration skills that could be useful in gathering materials.

But first she needs to know what kind of materials need to be found.

As such she follows Gwen in, giving a low whistle of appreciation herself. Then gives Gwen a nudge with her elbow. "So is this one of those 'secret' shop projects you keep going on about?"

Crafting, huh? Well, that entails forging weapons and blacksmithing. So count BlackRose as a part of this whole thing. She's small but she's tough, and did we mention she wields a huge sword too?

At least when she's in combat or something like that. For now, she's just walking along, her usual strong demeanor on her face as she does so. She may be smiling now, but don't get on her bad side or you will regret it. Even if she's not physically fighting you, she's still likely to use some strong words with you!

Stopping for a drink of water (or something like that) from a bottle in her inventory, BlackRose stretches her arms behind her head and then looks at this whole thing. She gives it a slight nod and her smile increases a little. "This looks like it could be good for a LOT of things!"

Casually relaxing against a building a ways down the street Shaskur watches the people entering into the new crafting complex. People seem to move in and out with a casual air to it. Then she spots Yuuki enter in, the undefeated duelist.

Eyebrows raising ever so slightly she walks the rest of the way and also enters into the complex. Looking around at the different areas she walks over to inspect the artisanal supplies, while also keeping an eye on the others discussing nearby.

There was quite a bit here. A few of the supplies caught her eye. She could use these. She nods ever so slightly to herself as she continues to look around.

    Yuuki turns around to walk backwards for a bit as she listens to Gwen. She nods along, saying, "It's good to see everyone working together to explore new things and make progress!" Yuuki grins, "I may have to give it a try myself!"

    Yuuki turns back once more as she continues looking around, though does go further to say, "I do have the weapon forging skill after all." She chuckles, "Not that I've ever used it before." She humms, "Buuuut. Since this whole thing is like a reset, maybe I should give it a shot!"

    Yuuki proceeds to run over to the active forge, before holding her hands out towards it, "Mmmmm. Nice and warm."

Nureha drifts across the courtyard in a flowing mass of skirts and elegant dress, lingering around a few trees that dot the inner courtyard. She smiles at Yuuki as she takes in the meager, but still very functional surroundings. "It certainly has potential." Vespa, wandering around, sees that roughly speaking, there are facilities for Woodworking and the carving of materials in the Artisanal section, as well as some Tailoring stations. A Plant Hywaden crafter walks past them, carrying a box of supplies to drop off. It's pretty bare bones, but there is obvious space that is being laid aside for improvement.

Nureha raises her eyebrows in obvious surprise when she catches Shiroe in the milling crowd, but then it softens into a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes, a mischievious glint playing off them.

She inclines her head slightly again, gesturing silently to the archway on which the words "A Reason For Being" or "Ikegai" have been emblazoned. She is quickly pulled away by someone else, drifting across the courtyard in another direction. She stops in front of Gwen, who has been instrumental like so many others in getting this place established. "Oh, I find no problem with that. Please.. take whatever station you require. You did so much good work on our behalf, it's the least we can do."

She allows people to wander around for a little while and get to know eachother.

Orientation, which happens as people get settled in, is handled not only by her but by other Plant Hwyaden members who are wearing guild colors to make them easily accessible.

People are asked about their crafter proficiencies and how long they were playing before the Apocalypse. Newbies are paired with more experienced players. Each specialization is grouped together while spectators and well-wishers are left to their own devices.

"First. I would like to ask what experience everyone has had with the crafting system thus far. We know that having a crafting skill is neccessary for making progress in any particular specialty, but I'd like to hear people's thoughts. What have you tried? What has and hasn't worked for you? Has anyone observed what the Lander population that hosts us and the Town of Beginnings do to create and refine goods? I ask so that we might all freely get on the same page before breaking up into individual specialties and discussing what will do going forwards in each group."

    Kyo Kirin, Plant Hwyaden member, Nero Idol, is here. She has probably already been here, though probably out of sight, because she's pretty easy to spot. Halfway sensible OL shoes, black tights, a white, short-sleeved uniform with red trim of genre-breaking modernity, barely acceptable skirt length, and the iconic, rounded cap sitting across her head from right to left. There's no mistaking it. This is the Miniskirt Nurse outfit, something no cash shop would be without. It's anyone's guess how she's managed to acquire it.

    It came with gloves and an apron, so it's not actually that bad at all for what she's planning to do with it. "Pharmacy is my only crafting skill, so I hope we have plenty of herbs on hand. I haven't really done much with it, though." Her class didn't even have that skill when she'd first started the game, so she'd never had much to do with the crafting system.

Shaskur turns to listen as an elegantly dressed Cait Sith begins to speak and asks for the experiences that others have had so far. On inspection she sees the Cait Sith is Nureha. Shaskur narrows her eyes in thought and then it comes to her, that is one of the higher ups in the Olympus Alliance and member of Plant Hwyaden. Well that makes sense then.

She considers her own experience for a moment. All she has done so far is make sketches for herself, like she would have in the real world. She does have the Artisany skill though, would someone without it be able to do what she does? She doesn't know. She never tried it before the apocalypse, so she can't compare it to how things were before either.

This little side excursion might be useful. She waits and listens as the others discuss their findings.

    The orientation has begun, so Yuuki unfortunately makes her way from the toasty forge over to join the group around Nureha. As she listens to Nureha speak, Yuuki glances around at the various people here in this group. She recognises some of them, mostly those from the Olympus Alliance which she has started getting to know. Others she's a little clueless about.

    As Nureha finishes, Yuuki raises her hand to speak, saying, "Acccctually. One of the main reasons I decided to come was to see if anyone's been working on how to restore our deleveled items back to their former glory."

    Yuuki pats the sheathed sword at her waist, saying, "I'm eager to get the Absolute Sword back to FULL POWER!" Yuuki pumps her first into the air at that last part. Before grinning and saying, "After all, my skill can only make up for the stat loss to some degree. So if anyone else is working on it, I'd be happy to help!"

    Yuuki looks around to see if anyone else pipes up about it.

Gwen looks to see Shiroe as he arrives and looks him over for a moment and waves to Shiroe she knows he's busy and then she'll pause as Blackrose arrives nd she looks her over for a moment.

"Hello! We're hoping to do so! I'm Gwen I don't think we have met!"

"For me, it's tailoring and cooking though I can help on a few other things I have a tailoring project I'm working on right now. I have been working with far less on it before this."

Gwen beams at this.

"I might have some more luck with what I'm working on here."

She's going to head over to the tailoring station and will bring up her menu to pull some supplies out and take a look in her crafting window for a moment.

"I'm starting over from scratch for the most part on that Yuuki. Tell me about it, I don't have my heals yet or Grand Cross."

She whistles a bit as she start going over her tailoring supplies.

Vespa speaks up "All the tea i've tired to make has tasted like rain water. Not sure why. Is it the ingredients I'm using? Am I doing something wrong? And why does all food taste like carboard anyway? I've haven't tired much with tailoring. I not even where to start with making weapon or armor, or even if I can."

Folding her arms, BlackRose says, "I'm here to see about learning to improve my blacksmithing skills mainly. I know a bit, but I'm sure I can do a lot better." She cracks her knuckles as if to emphasize this point. "There's nothing I love more than making new stuff with some metal. It's not only a great way to warm up, but it also helps get rid of stress!"

Shiruba has plenty of game experience, but isn't really a crafter, as she points out to whoever asks of her. Though the few dismayed looks she gets brighten when they learn that she is a Hunter. Animals and beastly monsters are the most likely to drop hides as loot, as well as meat. Or plant regeants if they're botanical. The latter two get her pointed towards the Cooking section.

She doesn't have Cooking, but she does have Fire. Which she demonstrates by pulling out one of her arrows and striking the head on the ground like it was a piece of flint. It sparks into flames, and she jabs it into one of the cooking pits to light it up.

If she can do something useful to get better food made, she'll gladly go for it. Even her voracious appetite can handle cardboard bland non-flavor for only so long.

"Unfortunately nobody has found any way to restore equipment levels yet." Kaydon says, as he looks over to Yuuki, "Save for grinding, I suppose. Same as everything else. At least you got to keep equipment, a lot of people lost everything apparently, or nearly everything."

He makes his way towards the forge area, and looks over some of the equipment, "I think this has everything I need to try what I've been wanting to." He muses, as he looks over the stocks available, "Have to get one of the forges going hot."

    As he looks in each cardinal direction, it seems pretty clear how they have the place organized. A hand coming under his chin in contemplation. In truth he may have reservations but frankly if they were able to get more resources... As he finds himself in thought he ends up spotting Gwen waving him down. A smirk accrues on his face as he starts to head over her way. Truth be told he wasn't /that/ busy at the moment. If anything he was just as much a spectator as those others who were coming to check the place out. "Gwen, been a while. Guess you had the same idea as me. Though...Don't think there's too much focus on Scribe stations...Oh right. Were you able to meet back up with your dad?" Now that the events with Ezzo were over he had hoped that was the case. It'd be pretty disheartening to hear otherwise.

Vespa observes Shirbura as she starts a fire in one of the cooking pits. "That's handy. Pity my cooking skill is so low.", she reaches into the front of pocket of her apron and pulls out a tea pot looking around and pours some water into it.. Then she places it on top of cooking pit.
"Let's start with the basics and work from there."

Looking to Gwen, BlackRose puts on a smile, glad to meet someone else who has an interest in similar things. "Call me BlackRose, please." A laugh a little. "Sorry I didn't see you at first, I'm just so mesmerized by this whole thing it's totally amazing." She tilts her head. "Still, it's nice to meet someone who is also interested in this whole thing."

Nureha drifts in and out of conversations, moving from station to station.

She doesn't say much, just a word here or a question. She seems to be listening intently to what everyone has to say. Occasionally, she will take a book out of her inventory and scribble something down before moving on.

When she makes another circuit, nodding approvingly to Vespa as she moves towards Gwen, Shiroe and fixes her attention on Blackrose. "Hello." she says with a cheerful smile, joining the small group. "I do not believe we have had the pleasure. How are you all finding our workshop so far?"

    Yuuki looks a little disheartened that the problem she is facing hasn't been solved yet. What have you people been up to!? But more seriously, Yuuki ohs, "That's unfortunate... There's going to come a point where I've outleveled the sword. And I'd really rather that not happen. It's a good sword!"

    Yuuki wanders over to the forging area of the crafting complex. She pokes her head in at the various others that are starting to get to work. Watching them with an impressed expression.

    As one of the stations frees up, Yuuki quickly ducks into it and hmmmmms. She looks at the various tools... Before finally selecting one of the hammers. She unsheathes her sword, placing it on the table, "Like this, I guess..." She hammers the blade a few times, before picking it up to examine it.

    Frown, "This is more complicated than it looks..."

Gwen says "Getting to hammer metal like your Vulcan would help a lot I'd say for busting some stress."

She says to Blackrose with a grin.

She's mucking about with tailoring or the moment and calls out to Shiruba.

"I'm going to put you to work later hunting for things!"

Gwen looks Shiroe and nods

"That is something we should add soon, I'll bring it up soon as I'm able. Yeah, he's safe now, though I thought mom was going to end him. He's doing well both of them are levelling for the most part at the moment. Thank you for your help on that Shiroe."

She looks back to Blackrose "Blackrose? That's a good name. I like it! It's really something, isn't it? It's better than just griping about the food or anything else."

    He shakes his head at the remark. "It's fine. Honestly I'm just glad the family's reunited." Truthfully he's a bit surprised to hear her entire family plays the game. But rather than remark on it, he should just be happy that at least they can struggle through this ordeal together. He also gives a nod to Blackrose as well, "Shiroe. I don't think I'll be able to help much with your Black-smithing needs but it seems like the set-up here will be worthwhile to players who are new to the crafting system, and to those who aren't. Anyway...Sorry to talk and run, but there's something I wanted to discuss with-"

    Just as he was about to step away, It seems the person of interest he was going to speak to comes to the group all of a sudden. He finds himself taking a step back, not too get him out of the group entirely, but it was clear that her presence had thrown him off somehow. Still, at least she saved him the trouble of finding her, right? Convenient? It was hard to say when you felt as though you were losing your rhythm to this type of person...

"It has its origins," BlackRose replies with a smirk. "I'll discuss it sometime, perhaps. But for now let's focus on the present." She smiles a little. "And yeah, griping isn't good, especially about food. I understand when you get hungry it can be annoying, but talking about it too much gets annoying. It's almost like that annoying beeping sound you'd hear in older games when you were about to die." A pause as BlackRose realizes she just made herself possibly sound older than she is.

With a laugh, BlackRose adds, "Oh my, I'm basing this on compilations I've played here and there. I was never around when those original games were out." She scratches the back of her neck nervously. "Still, I'm sure we can all agree with the general idea, right?"

Yuuki be hammering. She be hammering in the evening. She hammering all over this workshop. Soon, all over this land.

It's.. very strange not using the menu to do things. The menu is such a useful series of shortcuts that 'Bang Hammer On Sword' doesn't seem to be QUITE enough to kickstart the process. There is probably some sequence of actions that have to be followed, but that's what the menu was for. For shortcutting such things.

Nureha gives Shiroe a mysterious half-smile that doesn't QUITE cop to the fact that she realizes that he's reacting like he's been hit with Mind Shock, but the mischief is apparently clear, as though she wasn't meaning to -- but WAS willing to take advantage of an opportunity if it was presented. "If you ladies will excuse us.." she says to Gwen and Blackrose, turning back towards the few trees scattered along the inner courtyard.

There are still Plant Hwyaden people roaming around, taking notes and asking questions. This one happens to be. "What would you do if the Menu system never recuperated? What system have people discovered the Landers use to get their good and services?"

The question circulates.

Shiruba holds a hand up to wave back to Gwen. "That's what I'm here for!" Meat, hides... hmmm. Someone mentioned monster dropping the regents to make potions the other day, she'll have to keep a lookout for that too.

"Hey Shriuba!" Kaydon calls out from the forge area, "Can I get one of those fire sticks over here? Wanna light this thing up." He's packed one of the forges full of coal, and gathered up some metal nearby, but figures if he can get her magic flames it might help the process.

Vespa water comes to a boil. "Okay...", she hmms digging into her arpon pocket. "Mint or cinnamon?", she says holing up a mint leaf and a cinnamon stick. "Cimmamon." ,she breaks into peices and puts into the tea pot. "Now we wait.", she puases. "and hope."

Shaskur continues to inspect the artisanal supplies. Some of them might be fun to use. That was all it was to her, just a fun pass time right now. Still, it could be interesting to investigate it further.

Then one of the cooking pits bursts into flame, catching her eye. There was a silver Cait Sith there who was now waving at a small group nearby, she was probably the one to light it.

Wait, this Cait Sith looked familiar. On inspection she saw the name was Shiruba. Shaskur had a gut feeling they had partied together once or twice during the exploration of new raid areas, but just couldn't recall. She probably never spoke directly with Shiruba before.

She hummed in thought a moment, then gave a little shrug and wandered over in her direction. Raising a hand, she greeted Shiruba, "Hey. I think we partied together before. Like before everything.." she waved her hand in the air a bit, "Happened.. I'm Shaskur." Then she looked back and forth between the fire pit and Shiruba. "You're a cook or something?"

Shiruba turns her attention for a moment when someone speaks to her. There's a vage spark of familiarity, but she's not always the best with names. Thank goodness there's things like Inspect and what not.

"I think so.. but there's not always time for proper aquainting in such events is there?" So she gives her a short, polite bow in return greeting. "Shiruba, the Howling Storm. Explorer and Hunter of monsters and mythos alike."

An ear perks as Kaydon's familiar voice calls for fire. "Coming right up!" She pulls two of the elementally charged arrows from her quiver and repeats the process of striking them like oversized matchs to ignite the heads, and passes them along to Kaydon. "No, I just have an element that useful to others getting started," she admits to Shaskur. "My Profession skills are in Cryptography and Cartography." Not the most useful things right now, at least in how she'd think of using them to map and decipher things in dungeons.

Following along with Shiruba as she talks, Shaskur listens intently. She then raises an eyebrow, "What does cryptography even do?"

Then Shiruba passes an arrow over to a tall individual with black hair. On inspection Shaskur sees the name Kaydon, and also a member of the Silver Swords. Looking a bit more intently at him, she really can't place him. Well, she isn't the best at remembering people so that's not totally unexpected. She raises he hand again in greeting, "Hey. Looks like we are both in the Silver Sword guild as well. I'm Shaskur."

Shaskur then looks over at the forge. "I guess you are a smith then, Kaydon?" and she looks a little hopeful at this question.

Kaydon takes the fire arrows, and tosses them into the forge, watching the flames start to spread through the coal, and smoke start to belch from the top of the forge, "Okay good." He turns his attention back to Shaskur, and grins, "I am indeed, yes. On both accounts. Or at least that's the plan." He lets the forge continue to build heat, grabbing some bellows and getting air into it.

"Sure it's not a propane forge, that'd make things too easy." He muses, as he tries to make sure the coals get hot enough, "I've never exactly smithed anything in real life, but I used to watch this show about it a lot."

Kaydon seems to have the right idea. The forge is packed with coal and ready to be lit. The forge is stubborn and takes a lot of pumps from the bellows. It also smoulders terribly, there might be a crack in it's infrastructure, but eventually it warms up enough that literal waves of heat are excluding from it, pushing away the cold.

Vespa hopes for things to work out as she puts both a daring piece of mint and cinnamon in the boiling water of the teapot. Now, all that's left is to wait..

While the tea-pot continues to softly burble to itself, carrying hopes and dreams with it, the forge is now hot enough to use. Possibly enough to soften the metal inside.. though how USEABLE it will be is still up for debate.

"Runes, glyphs, magic scripts. Those sort of things," Shiruba explains to Shaskur. "They're commonly used as part of magic puzzles or such in dungeons. Some high level dungeons even had their own distinct scripts! It was a way to give adventurers hints without being completely obvious and ruining the emersion... not that such is an issue right now." Her tail wags a few times, happy to talk about familiar subjects. "Also useful for checking if things are cursed sometimes."

Gwen grins at Shiroe.

"So am I, Shiroe."

She punches in a few things into her menu as she works and soon she's going to get a needle out with some thread and keeps working away as she chats. She'll let Shiroe go about his business not wanting to keep him. Shiroe's a busy dude after all. She looks back to Blackrose for a moment.

"Do you know how much of human advancm3ebt or falling back is related to food. One of the big reasons the Europeans spread out as they did was over tea and spices for food."

She grins at this.

"I exist because of a massive potato crop failure too."

She notes for a moment as she works away doing some simple stitching work.

"It could be worse, this could be like some pre-Kiss MMORPGs."

    Yuuki looks thoughtfully at her sword on the table. Then at the hammer in her hand. She decides to follow the same approach she takes out in the field when finding a mob she's having trouble against.

    Yuuki pounds her sword with the hammer harder and faster.

    Yuuki is distracted from her likely failed attempt by a Plant Hwyaden member, "Huh? Oh... Hmmm. Well, I think I've just seen Landers doing things the normal way. They don't have menus anyway, being NPCs, right? Though before it used to just be idle animations and the like. Seems like they can actually accomplish things now though. It's an impressive boost in VR gaming tech!"

    While chatting with with Plant Hwyaden member, Yuuki catches sight of something out the corner of her eye. She gets a mischevious grin on her face, quickly slipping away from the main forge area. Using her impish stealthiness, Yuuki sneak sneak sneaks over to a barrel. She peeks over it to see Nureha heading off with Shiroe towards a tree line. Too far to hear anything, but Yuuki grins, musing to herself, "Ohoho, this is interesting~"

    Mizuki's found her way to the workshop! "Sorry I'm late! I don't actually know any crafting skills... but then I wondered, perhaps you might have stuff for Appraisal? It's crafting-adjacent, right?"

    There's a moment where Shiroe pushes up his glasses, the sheen hiding any sort of expression he gives towards that smile. Though he looks back to Blackrose and Gwen briefly again with a nod before excusing himself. He follows Nureha into the courtyard area where the trees scatter about. The sound of those rumors tickling his ear as they walked till they reach a point where it seemed like the two could converse without too much issue of easedropping.

    Now it was just the two of them. Though for some time, no words are spoken by Shiroe. Rather, he's back to like he was at the beginning of the opening just looking her way. Almost as if doing so would give him some sort of insight to this book with such a misleading cover.

    Eventually he resigns himself as he speaks up.

    "Giganpor had told me that Plant Hwyaden's Ikegai was something to look into, as well as their own contributions. From what I've seen he wasn't wrong. Your people probably took plenty of time to get this set-up as well and it has a lot of potential."

    He speaks with earnest in his voice, almost making it sound like he was awarding much of the praise to Nureha directly. Yet, again he finds himself halting his tongue. As if still deliberating internally of the words to speak. With another breathe taken in, then out he continues.

    "Discussion has brought to the NWA's attention about the possibility of going to the Ninetails Dominion inorder to procure more resources. I would like to be able to help the Ikegai in some way, and I'm sure the Ikegai would greatly benefit from an increase in tools and formulas from the Dominion as well. But..." There's hesitance. An obvious hesitance to contribute. One that Nureha should understand after the matter of Ezzos. Her interference had unnecessarily hindered their efforts, and the fact of the matter was clearly he was concerned that in some way she might choose to do so again. In fact, probably sharing this information was opening himself up to backlash. Still... "...I'd like to know if I can trust." It should seem like a no-brainer that she'd want to help her own alliance and the Ikegai, but he still truly didn't know the reasons for her past interference and well...It made it difficult to trust her motives even to that degree.

    Wisteria rubs the back of her head walking along with Mizuki. "Hey sorry, dungeon ran long, did I miss anything big on weapon crafting and enchanging and potions and stuff?"

After hearing that Kaydon is a smith her eyes twinkle slightly in excitement, "Oh, that's koo." She pauses a moment and then tilts her head slightly and adds, "if you get a hang of things, do you think I could contract some work from you?"

Then turning to Shiruba, she nods slowly, "Oh, that makes much more sense now. It sounds pretty helpful actually." She hums in thought slightly. "I guess I'm a bit of a scout myself. I'm good a searching so I often can find those, but not great at figuring them out. Maybe that's why we were both doing the initial investigation on the new raid areas." She nods once as if to confirm this for herself.

Then as an afterthought, "Wait, cursed?" Her eyebrows raise, "Have you found any cursed items so far?"

"Thank goodness I haven't!.. It'd be hard to find anyone at these low levels to uncurse it." Shiruba gives a playful waggle with a finger. "But it's something I've seen in a lot of offline dungeon exploration games, so there's a pretty good chance it's out there, somewhere. There is a Cursed status effect, after all."

"I'm not trying to get ahead of myself, but sure." Kaydon replies, "Lets see if we can even shape metal first before I go promising to make equip quality max level swords." He offers a grin to Shaskur, before turning back to the forge, "Hmm." He honestly doesn't know how long a forge should take to heat up, but eventually manages to stoke the fire.

"That's way better with how cold it is out here." The were fang says, before moving over to the pile of metal he had assembled, grabbing a couple of bars of stock ingots and tossing them into the forge, raking coals over top of them to make sure they get heated fully.

Yuuki uses Stealth Barrel! It's -- Quasi Effective(?)

There are a lot of people, and most of them are concentrating on their own tasks so her 'Sword Pounding Frenzy' isn't missed immediately. The person taking the notes nods and smiles to her, much like the rest of the guild has been doing talking with other adventurers, and puts it down, though one rolls their eyes when nobody appears to be looking.

Meanwhile. Mizuki is handled by another Plant Hwyaden member who leads them over to a small station where a number of unidentified objects have been laid out, including a glowing blue stone and a vaguely gold colored lute, as well as notes and descriptions of the various quests going on around the Isle of Beginnings. There is also very precise notes left behind.

Nureha, sequestered in the trees, draws herself up as Shiroe begins to speak. She rests her right hand on her left, lightly touching the ring there as she clasps her hands and looks dutifully attentive, like any other member of the Round Table Alliance. An ear flicks at the praise towards the workshop, but her expression doesn't move save her eyes narrowing just a fraction, looking towards some inner place before returning.

Ah. There is was. The other shoe tumbles to the floor with a flop. Oh, my dear. You must hold the carrot a little more delicately than that.

Nureha's face blooms into a sultry smile, warm enough to match the heat of the forge. "Has it?" she pursues her lips. "..My my.. I was hoping to approach the Scale Alliance about such a possibility. They do have such a desperate need in these trying times that we are all too glad to fulfill."

A long pause, a flash of calculation. "But I can see why you would want to immediately secure such an alliance, despite your doubts. After all.. we wouldn't want to turn this into a bidding war, would we?" She taps her chin twice. "Which brings around the question of trust, doesn't it? What can you and the NWA offer to prove that you are the best choice for this situation?"

Somehow, she's attempting to turn it around on him. Somehow.. she looks like she doesn't trust /HIS/ motives.

Shaskur nods at Kaydon, "Oh yeah, totally. It's koo. Just eh, let me know if you get things going. I really could use better daggers." She watches with mild interest as Kaydon continues to work the forge, although she takes a step back as it is getting fairly warm near it.

Then to Shiruba she continues, "Yeah, that makes sense. I'd kind of be interested to see a cursed item. Just not, eh, touch it myself." Then she is silent for a time as she continues to watch Kaydon work before thinking of another question, "Eh, I've mostly just been trying to level in the forests near the Town of Beginnings. You find any good grind spots?"

    Yuuki continues to peek over the barrel as she watches Nureha and Shiroe talking. She's too far away to hear what they're saying. And she's no lip reader. So she decides to guess what they're saying.

    Yuuki whispers to herself in a deep tone, "That dress makes you look really pretty."

    Then in a higher tone, "Thanks! Those glasses make you look really geeky. But in a handsome kind of way."

    Back to a deeper tone, "Thanks. That's what I was going for."

    Yuuki pauses. Then shakes her head, whispering normally, "Nah, that doesn't sound right..."

"Most of the island is," Shiruba replies to Shaskur with a bob of her head. "It's designed to get players started out after all. The monsters that are active often depend on the time of day though. The best way to find what works for you is to experiment. There's also the various Duties when they spawn."

She hmms the various guildfolk wandering around taking, and picks up a parchment and quill for herself. "I'm gonna go get some notes of my own, on the kinds of materials people are looking for to work with. Talk to you later Shaskur, Kaydon." She turns and wanders off. Really she just wants to be useful.

    Wisteria looks around and then heads to the forge. She changes her clothing options when she heads in. Leaving her in a chest wrap and hakama with her hair pulled up into a topknot. "Weapon smithing?" she asks of Kaydon.

    Oh hey, they DO have stuff for Appraisal! Nice!

    One of Mizuki's ears rotates to the conversation about trade and deals. She is /definitely/ the wrong cat for that, so she'll hope the Divine Dragons sent someone to handle it.

    Her eyes focus on the items in front of her. She thinks she recognizes the blue stone from one version of the bandit duty, but the rest she doesn't recognize. She also has some of her own items to see if she can appraise them better with proper tools...

Shaskur raises her hand again in parting, "Thanks for the info. Goodluck with your notes." She then considers what Shiruba said, she has mostly been solo grinding these last few weeks. She hasn't even tried the duties yet. She makes a mental note to do that sometime.

Then she turns back to watch Kaydon. "So, uh, not sure if you're too busy. Did you find any good grind spots?" though she isn't really expecting too much as Kaydon does seem to be pretty involved in his experimenting.

"Eventually." Kaydon replies to Wisteria, before glancing back at the wolf cait sith, "Seeya Shiruba." He moves back to the forge and reaches in with a pair of tongs, turning the metal over to check it's nice and orange.

He pulls it out and places it on an anvil, and then begins to whack away at it with a hammer, the tattoo on his arm glowing as he focuses on trying to move the metal into a shape besides a glowing orange bar.

Gwen is working again on her little project things are going mostly all right but then she tries something else tying to get some more advance than she was planning to do. Things go forward she meets some success and then she starts on some more advanced thing she knows how to do and then? She makes a startled noise as the durability hits zero and the thing she's working on explodes in a burst of shards of light leaving the needle in her hand and her having a blank look on her face.

"That was a bad idea..."

Wisteria nods her head "Cool... weirdly enough I have skill in weapon smithing on my sheet but not metal crafting so like... I can I think shape metal if I intend to make a weapon? I duno, I know a fair amount about metal working from uhm outside? Well when it comes to making swords and other traditional weapons..." she says watching him work.

As Kaydon hammers away at the metal, it actually begins to move. The tattoo on his arm is channeling heat into it, seeming to make it a bit easier for him to move the metal. But it's working.

"Well damn." He says, more to himself than anything else, "I mean it's impossible to call this anything other than a slightly longer piece of metal, but if it can be moved, that means it can be shaped.." Of course he'll have to do everything by hand. Which means finding a grindstone if they don't have one already.

    Wisteria leans over the metal "Awesome... so do you know your color listing? Are you able to test it for steel or iron? Do we need to use a skill or does spark testing work?" she asks "Do we know if it's homoginous metal or garbage that needs folding?"

Gwen says "I botched the stiching but for the first little bit it was going pretty well. So I think we may be on to something here Kaydon." She will take a break for a moment and pull out a bottle of water to drink. At least water tastes like it should.

    Hmm. It's no good. Mizuki can't make headway.

    She takes out one of her own items; the metal shard with red lines, recovered from the shattered weapon of the lizardman claiming to be the pirate king. She's tried appraising it before, but hey, sixth time's the charm, right?

    This time, a window appears:

Broken Metal Shard
Once, this had been a piece of a more powerful weapon. Now it is simply a twisted and burnt bit of metal. Even so, there are strange red lines within the piece, showing that it may still have use, to the right person, or to someone with the right skills.
[Metalworking], [Weapon Forging], and [Appraisal]

Appraisal skill up!

    And then the piece of metal shatters into polygons. She starts rifling through her inventory and the provided items with renewed interest.

    "I've got it!"

    She picks up the instrument and holds it above her head, as one does when they've found something interesting. "This magical instrument will break after one song, but ensures that whoever's listening will hear out the entire song, no matter how far away they move!"

    Had there been an ulterior motive, had there been some reason beyond what he was saying than perhaps he would have held the carrot just a bit higher. To see how far she would go to take it. But that wasn't the case. He simply just wanted to hand her that carrot. The question for him wasn't if or not she'd take it, but whether or not she'd bite the hand of the person offerring.

     Her response makes it somewhat apparent to how that goes. There's a stoic look as she makes her insinuation. "At the moment, the NWA is already preparing their departure to the Dominion to which we fully intend to pick up the resources as needed. It's true that you could decide to negotiate a deal with the Dominion as well, but it's just as you said. No one would benefit from a bidding war, and all the Adventurers in Alne would suffer no matter which of us ended up making the deal. But who would be hurt the most by this?" Shiroe pushes up his glasses as he continues,

    "At the moment, the SEA is too focused on the tower to consider diplomacy with the other nations so it's true they'll likely rely on the other alliances to acquire goods that are otherwise unattainable to Alne. And while Olympus does have the potential to negotiate, you've all been busy with creating the Ikegai. So tell me, what do you think we've been doing? You could very well beat us to the punch to one kingdom but we're already establishing plans for a trading network with multiple partners."

    That was the game. They might lose one kingdom to the Olympus alliance, but they could end up beating them to the others and delegate trade with them. Even if a bidding war broke out it could mean they could mitigate their losses to some degree. Of course Plant Hwyaden could try to make independent deals with all those nations but did they have the same reputation as the NWA. Would they be able to come to a beneficial agreement that'd benefit them, or could it all end up like her attempts with Gilgamesh?

    As she might ponder on those thoughts, a friend request opens up on Nureha's screen from Shiroe, "I can notify you when our ships depart. Should you accept and decide that you want us to pick up resources on behalf of the Ikegai I'll take that as your answer. If not, I'll just leave it at that."

Shaskur continues to watch Kaydon for a few minutes, but then begins to tire. She really isn't that interested in the forging process, much moreso in the end results. Finally, she raises her hand in parting, "It was nice meeting you, Kaydon. I really hope things work out well for you!" Yep, that would also work out well for her if she could find a skilled smith, and one in her guild nonetheless! "I'm off for now. Chat more later!"

And with that she takes another look around the complex before heading out again to her own business.

Then. Pivot.

She accepts the friend request before he even stops talking, smiling as though with some inner triumph makes her glow from within. With an entirely too satisfied look on her face, she nods. "I'm sure we'll be in touch, my dear." she chuckles. "After all this dancing around eachother, perhaps we should attend to the kingdoms together. I am in need of a good dance partner."

At this poitn she is interrupted by one of her personnel and then a private message comes in. She turns to the Western Station and then to the Southern station briefly before turning back to Shiroe. "..And I believe I'll leave THAT invitation open as well. If you'll excuse me.." she curtesys to him and then drifts away.

    Oh hey, it looks like those two have finished chatting. Yuuki waits until Nureha has moved out of view before rising and jumping over the barrel that had been her hiding place.

    Yuuki casually walks to catch up with Shiroe, grabbing his attention with, "So hey, you look familiar. Have I dueled you before in the past?"

    Yuuki holds out a gloved hand to Shiroe, introducing herself with a smile, "I'm Yuuki. Guild leader of the Sleeping Knights, one of the other founding guilds of the Olympus Alliance."

    When Shiroe goes to shake Yuuki's hand, he'll find her grip very firm. Bordering on uncomfortably so. And she's not looking to let go quickly as she begins, "So try not to take this personally. I've got nothing against you. But as Nureha is a fellow guild leader and basically the main alliance rep, I feel it's important for me to watch her back." Makes sense. Yuuki continues, "Soooooo if you do anything to upset her..." Yuuki obviously pauses here for dramatic effect, like this is some kind of gangster movie, before finishing, "I'll track you down and PK you into next week."

    Yuuki says all this with a smile.

    Yuuki lets go of Shiroe's hand, saying, "Nice chat!" She begins to walk off, though turns her head over her shoulder to say, "We should go on an adventure some time!" Yuuki continues onwards, beginning to make her way out of the crafting complex. Her devilish tail swings happily behind her as she exclaims to no one in particular, "This is so much fun!"

    Wisteria hmmms "Okay I'm going to try something." she says and starts trying to apply active magic via her enchanting skill as the metal is being worked.

It seems that Kaydon has attracted a bunch of attention with the successful movement of the metal. It seems people want to take notes, and want to see him do it again. So Kaydon throws another few hunks of metal in the forge, and lets them get to tempurature, while he starts working the second piece he had thrown in earlier. He's not used to this kind of attention, but he's glad people seem to be taking note.

    There's a bit of surprise when he sees how quickly Nureha accepts that friend request. Though there isn't much time he gets to dwell on it as she's pulled away. It felt like even when he was able to acquire what he wanted, the way she held herself truly did make it seem like she was ahead. He lets out a bit of a sigh as things finally settle in. He gets like a good three seconds to himself before Yuuki's arrival, catching his attention. "Ah, you're..." He was already aware of to some degree of the person who had garnered the title of Zekken, and truth be told he had intended to say hi to her at some point in all this. So it was a nice surprise to see she found him. "Ah, I don't think we have. Though I've definitely heard of you before. I'm Shiroe from Log Horizon, a guild of the New World Alliance." As he sees the glove hand come out, he's a little surprised, but from what he's heard of her not too unexpected. "Actually, I've heard a bit about from a friend. I think you already know Kiri-To?"

    As he goes to shake her hand, an unbecoming amount of strength is released into her grip. It's enough to throw him off. He knows this is a non-pvp zone but this definitely felt pretty aggressive. That's when she explains her deal with Nureha and what the situation would be if he had somehow ended up 'upsetting her'. There's a short moment where he finds his glasses slowly slinking off his face. There's a part that wants to say something. That wants to counter. But well...He's dealt with a lot of people before, but he's never really had such an odd experience as this. Before he can even get a word in she releases him and starts heading off. He's still trying to process what just happened, and for another moment thinks he should try to pull her away for a moment to explain things. Maybe just get things going on the right foot. That made sense right? So as he's about to step forward...She ends up turning back around to say they should adventure sometime and well...He somehow only finds himself able to wave goodbye...

    While there might have been some deliberation on whether he won or lost against Nureha...He's almost assured that he just got perfectly KO'ed by this small Spriggan. She truly was a fearful foe when she wanted to be...

    Wisteria grins widely showing off far too many sharp pointy sharklike teeth for any bunny mouth. The basic 'dagger' she has been casting over glows a sickly green. She holds it up. "ENCHANTED DAGGER!" the blade then shatters into pixels. "Are garbage..." she says and starts to work on another. She holds it up when it glows a black ... glowing black?? She holds it up and it shatters away into pixels again. "Okay... shit." she says and then covers her mouth. "I think I know what I need to get enchanting off the ground. I just need to get to Ninetails so I can buy some supplies." she grins brighter showing off all those teeth.

ENCHANTED DAGGER?

    Mizuki's ears twitch and she looks over excitedly. Then it shatters into pixels. "Aww..." She walks over and pats Wis on the shoulder. "Oh, do they have stuff for that in Ninetails? I wanted to take a trip there anyway..."

    Wisteria nods herhead "Well we might be able to find reagents here but Ninetails is a big merchant class." she says happily "Soooo I figure it's a good place to go to buy what I need."

    Mizuki ahs, "That's right! It's full of merchants so it's more high-class and junk, right? Shame it's not closer to Aincrad, maybe THEY have inns with nice beds and stuff."

    Wisteria nods her head and smiles. "We'll find the best INN in the area and go Shopping!"

    "Yay, shopping..." Mizuki smiles, but something about putting it that way seems to dampen her enthusiasm. ^n.n^;

    "Maybe we can get better weapons and armor, though..."